The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
The sorting of small agricultural, manufactured and/or produced objects such as seeds, pharmaceutical tablets or capsules, small electrical components, ball bearings, small food products, etc. can be cumbersome, painstakingly tedious, and wrought with human error.
For example, in seed breeding, large numbers of seeds are sampled and analyzed to determine whether the seeds possess a particular genotype or traits of interest. Generally, seeds are sampled by removing a small portion of each seed, while leaving the remaining seed viable for planting. The removed portions, or chips, and the corresponding ‘donor’ seeds are then cataloged to track the seeds and the respective corresponding chips. Each chip is then analyzed to identify various attributes of the respective chip and donor seed, such as DNA characteristics and/or traits.
After the seeds are sampled and the chips have been analyzed, the seeds are individually sorted according to attributes of each respective seed. Typically, the sorting process is painstakingly performed by hand, which is extremely time consuming and subject to human error.